So We Had a Light All Along
by forty-two dreams
Summary: Alternate Universe from the season finale where Jay and Will remember they had a lantern with them, and thus get to finish their game of Monopoly and chat a bit.


Jay looked about rather madly. He had to complete this Monopoly victory, and tonight, before Will had the opportunity to come up with a countering strategy. Jay's major advantage in games lay in his ability to improvise quickly.

Suddenly, he spotted a source of light. "The electric lantern! We can use that to see."

Simon groaned. "For fuck's sake. I'm not spending my last hours in England squinting at a Monopoly board. I'm going to bed."

"Me too," said Neil.

Will looked uncertain. "Oh, come on!" Jay said. It was hard to say why he found it so important to win. Perhaps it was because he felt that, as Will was upper class in the real world, Jay ought to get his turn to hold all the cards in the fantasy city of the board game. As he spent most of his time in one fantasy land or another, he knew how they worked better than anyone. Of course, Will wasn't really upper class, was he? He'd been raised upper class, sure, and had the 'please flutter my manhood with a feather duster' accent to prove it. But Jay had been to McKenzie Manor, and Will's very fit mum served the same knockoff macaroni as anyone else for dinner, when she wasn't too busy working double shifts to be present in the evening at all. Which led to a very interesting question: if Will's father, who had presumably financed all the Alpine holidays and silk cravats of Will's past, was still living, why had he allowed Will to sink to his current level of poverty? Why, indeed, after months of Sundays spent with his mates, couldn't Jay remember having even met the man? And if, as all evidence suggested, his perpetually indignant friend was just as poor, just as paternally neglected, just as socially, emotionally, physically, mentally, rubbish-bin-over-the-head pathetic as his three friends, why the hell did he continue to swagger around Rudge Park like a duke, with a briefcase in one hand and Leaves of Grass in the other?

And he accused Jay of being a liar!

Will reached for the lantern. "All right. Let's finish this thing."

It didn't take long. After about ten minutes, Jay had collected his last debt and crowned himself Champion of Monopoly Forever. "Yes!" he cried. "Told you I always come out on top!"

"Yes, very good, you've won a children's game," said Will. "Let's go to bed then."

"You didn't think it was a children's game when we started; you were going on about how it required 'superior financial thought levels' and all that. Admit it! I'm brilliant!"

Will grimaced at the thought, climbing to his feet in impatience. "Fine, fine. You played very shrewdly, Jay."

But Jay's triumph was not to last. Before he could rise for his victory dance, his phone beeped, and Will picked it up.

Jay tried to remain calm. Surely his dad knew Jay would never text him that rubbish about being hard in the bath, right? Jay, whose communications to his father ranged from timid queries for permission to over-generous apologies about nothing? But Will was grinning like he'd turned the tables, and Jay knew it wouldn't be that easy.

"You're sick, son," Will read with a relish. "Your mum was right about sending you to that shrink." But a look at Jay's face had him feeling slightly guilty.

"What's he on about?" Jay laughed nervously.

Will didn't say anything. He just watched the shadow fall over Jay's face, and in doing so, found that it looked familiar. "

It's ... it's a game we play sometimes," Jay said, desperate to fill the silence. "Saying total bollocks."

"Yes, I know," said Will sardonically. "You play it with us every day at school."

Jay looked down and didn't respond. Why didn't he even get to enjoy a simple Monopoly victory? Why did the world conspire to make him feel like shit all the time? Time passed. Well, at least Will seemed to be through taking the piss. Jay dragged his eyes back up to proper eye level. And found a most unfamiliar expression on his mate's face.

"My dad's the same," Will said abruptly. "Except for the part where you're on speaking terms."

Jay smiled darkly, feeling strangely warmed. The words felt like a pat on the shoulder, or a hug, or any of those other things he wasn't allowed to have.

"You're not the only one who's been to a psychologist either."

Well, this ought to be good. He looked up, waiting to hear more.

"In fact, the whole field of psychology carries a perfectly unjust social stigma in the western world that simply doesn't fit with an educated worldview. The mind is a complex machine that requires just as much care as the body. In fact, I've read that -"

"What were you sent to the shrink for?" Jay interrupted.

The gleam faded from Will's righteous face.

"Was it the same reason you got kicked out of your old school?"

"I was not kicked out, Jay!"

"Then why were you sent to the shrink?"

Will swallowed. "Just ... the obvious, I suppose."

Impatiently, Jay asked, "What did you have, though? Aspergers? OCD? Social anxiety?"

Will shrugged and sat back down beside his friend. "That's the funny thing. I was sent home without any firm diagnosis. Apparently I'm a special sort of crazy."

"Well I know what's wrong with you," Jay said, smiling. "

What's that? Oh-"

"- you're a wanker." Will smiled as if he'd been expecting that. "And you? What have you got?"

"Well," Jay said, "if I could tell you, then I wouldn't have it, now would I?"

Will nodded.

Jay nodded.

"Trouble with the truth, eh?"

Jay said nothing very defiantly.

"Well. That's not surprising. The truth is terrifying, isn't it?" Will said brightly.

"What truth? That you're a bender?" "

No," said Will. "I mean the embarrassing truths. The ones that make us look lesser. The little sad facts that we want to go away."

"What are you talking about?"

Will shook his head impatiently. "I mean that I know what you are. We all know what you are. There's nothing to be gained by concealing it."

Jay began to pull at his sleeve, unsure how to handle such a direct accusation. "Well ... same to you, you dick!"

"What?"

"Yeah, Will, I stretch the truth with my stories a bit sometimes. They're fucking stories. You know they're just stories, and Simon knows they're just stories, and ... well, subconsciously, Neil must know on some level. They're entertaining. Everybody has a laugh. But you? You lie with your life!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're scared."

Will threw up his hands. "Of what?"

"Of someone realizing you aren't clever, wealthy, cool, mature Prime Minister Will. Of someone seeing you with us, and thinking you're LIKE us. Or worse, seeing you alone."

"I haven't exactly hidden my association with you lot, whereas you've gone to desperate measures to make sure no one notices how fucked you are!"

Jay folded his arms. "Look here, mate, you want to talk like you're so much better than me? I'll start telling truths when you do."

"Fine. I will," said Will.

Nothing happened for a moment.

"And it had better be a proper embarrassing truth, too."

Nothing happened for another moment.

"Well? I'm waiting."

Quietly, Will said, "... Simon was my first real friend and he's moving away and I'm upset."

And Jay responded simply, "He was my first real friend, too."

Will looked a look of fellowship.

"Neil and I will look after you, mate. Don't worry."

"I'm not a stray cat!" Will objected.

"Yeah. You are."

"Well ... you said you'd tell a truth if I did."

Jay looked away. "My neighbor showed me his cock. That's all, I swear."

Will solemnly nodded. "I'm sorry, mate."

Jay said nothing.

"Also I can't believe you told Neil, of all people."

"Neil's usually pretty good at keeping secrets," said Jay.

"That's because he forgets them!"

"Close enough."

And then Will actually did put a hand on Jay's shoulder. "I can keep a secret," he declared shyly. "If you ever need me to."

"Well, that is definitely the most bent thing I have heard in my life," said Jay, but the effect was rather spoiled when he sort of burrowed into Will's side and stayed there, just resting.

Until, of course, Simon and Neil ran out of the tent vomiting. They shouted something about raw sausages between heaves.

"Fuck!" cried Simon, running toward the lake. "I'm covered in vomit. I'm going skinny dipping whether you like it or not."

Neil, who was equally sick-drenched but didn't seem to mind, watched him go.

"Jesus," he said. "What a girl!"

Will and Jay agreed.


End file.
